


Not Too Late

by Olivia_Ivy



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Everyone Needs A Hug, Heavy Angst, I can't say that it's not, I can't say that it's totally canon, I tried really hard with the twist, Implied/Referenced Torture, Iron Dad, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spider-son, THE ABSOLUTE WORST, Temporarily Mute Character, Thanos is the Worst, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump, but he killed my spiderson so I don't much care what he thinks of his characterization, but until A4 comes out, graphic descriptions of death, including me, like i scare myself with how graphic i get, loki is still dead, my god heavy angst, sorry - Freeform, thanos is kind of ooc, this is schrodinger's canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 22:31:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15543567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olivia_Ivy/pseuds/Olivia_Ivy
Summary: “Bring him back.”“I understand your pain. I lost my child as well—”“No, see, youkilledyour kid. And then you killed mine. Now that, that was where you really fucked up. I’ll give you one more chance. Bring. Him. Back.”Everyone comes back. Peter comes back different.





	Not Too Late

**Author's Note:**

> I ... don't know where this idea came from. Usually, I can trace it back to "oh, I saw this post that made me think of this and this etc" but I legitimately do not know where I got this idea. I think I thought of the lines from the summary then expanded from there, but I honestly don't know. It just happened. Enjoy the pain.

Tony stood outside the medbay, staring blankly at his phone. The screen had gone dark a while ago, but he made no move to open it again. He strained his ears, already knowing he wouldn’t hear the voice he most needed to.

_ “Bring him back.” _

_ “I understand your pain. I lost my child as well—” _

_ “No, see, you  _ killed _ your kid. And then you killed mine. Now that, that was where you really fucked up. I’ll give you one more chance. Bring. Him. Back.” _

Soft, feminine murmuring was met with long stretches of silence. If he really wanted to, Tony could pull up the security feed of the medbay and watch it on the phone still in his hand. He didn’t. He let them have their moment in privacy.

_ “Let’s try this again. Since your dad didn’t want to talk to me, how ‘bout you, huh?” _

_ “...” _

_ “Where is Peter?” _

_ “...” _

_ “Peter Parker, of Queens, Earth. He disappeared with everyone else, and everyone else is back,  _ except him _. Where is he!” _

_ “...” _

The medbay doors opened, and Tony quickly put his phone in his pocket. May Parker stumbled out, and pressed her back against the wall on the opposite side of the door from Tony. She slid down slowly until she was sitting on the floor, cradling her head in her hands. It was quiet in the hall, Tony unsure of what he could or should do. After some time, she looked up at him, red eyes brimming with tears behind thick glasses. “What happened?” she asked in a trembling voice.

_ “M-miss’er … S-S-Stark …” _

“I don’t know.”

* * *

 

Several weeks passed. The Guardians were sticking around for the time being. Their garishly colored ship was in need of repairs that, according to the talking raccoon, would normally take only a few days at most, but Earth (or Terra, as they insisted on calling it) had exactly none of the parts they needed. There were some substitutes they could make with Shuri’s help and Stark’s lab, and Thor was sent out into the galaxy to gather the ones they couldn’t doctor. Without the use of the Bifrost, it was taking him longer than anticipated.

Aside from the Visitors from Beyond Who Overstay Their Welcome, things are settling into a sort of normal. Everyone is at the compound, and though things are still rough between a lot of them, it’s better than it was. Compared to where things were weeks ago, everything is fine.

Almost everything.

Peter was released from the medbay. His healing factor was as good as ever, and any injuries he got in the fight were taken care of within days. Aunt May visited every day after work, and the whole day on her days off.

But Peter hasn’t spoken since the fight.

_ “M-miss’er … S-S-Stark …” _

_ Tony’s eyes widened and he ripped the swathes of dark fabric from the head of the person below him. There was a dark bruise in the shape of a large hand around his neck. Curly brown hair had grown past his ears and over his forehead. Doe-brown eyes were rimmed with bruises from lack of sleep and the preceding fight. But it was him. “No, no, Peter …” _

_ He looked overwhelmed, his eyes darting everywhere, always coming back to Tony’s face. He opened his mouth and his eyes rolled back in his head, his whole body falling slack. Tony caught him. He’ll always catch him. _

He wouldn’t say anything. Not just about what happened, he wouldn’t talk at all. In the medbay, he sat silently looking out the window while Bruce ran tests, and Aunt May chatted to fill the oppressive silence, and Tony hovered nearby. Far enough that he wasn’t intruding on the family’s moments or Bruce’s work, but close enough that the pressure in his chest lessened. He couldn’t be away from Peter for more than an hour before the panic began to set in. At night, he would wake up in a cold sweat, certain that Peter was gone again, and couldn’t calm down until FRIDAY showed him a live feed of wherever Peter was. Because he didn’t sleep. Not the whole night, not in his room. Sometimes he would be sitting in his desk chair, staring out his window, or he would be somewhere else in the compound, dozing in a hammock made of webs.

He wouldn’t talk, he wouldn’t sleep much. He ate, but it always seemed to be when Tony’s back was turned. Rhodey offered to let him pick a movie one night, and instead of bouncing up to pick a Star Wars movie like he would have before, he apathetically lifted a shoulder, his gaze not wavering from the blind-covered windows. Tony just opened the shades and popped in  _ A New Hope _ for him. Peter would talk eventually, and Tony would be there for him when he did.

Which brought him to the hangar. Tony was working on the quinjet. It took some heat in the battle but miraculously wasn’t beyond repair. The racoon, Rocket, was working on the orange monstrosity the Guardians called a ship. Peter was sitting on the wing of their ship, staring out at the open hangar door. A warm breeze blew in, tousling his curls. Tony kept one eye on his work and one on Peter.

Tony jumped at a sudden hissing noise. Peter didn’t flinch as a hatch on the Guardians’ ship opened. Tony pulled up a live feed from FRIDAY to better see what was going on. Gamora and Nebula stepped out and onto the wing, sitting on either side of him. Whatever Rocket was doing was too loud for Tony to hear through the feed, but he watched Gamora’s mouth move as she said something to Peter. He made no move to acknowledge her. She said something else, this time reaching out to touch him. He pulled his arms close to his body, and she withdrew her hand. All three were silent.

Then, Nebula began talking. She gripped the wing, warping the metal under her fingers and had a pained expression on her face. Peter’s gaze flickered once to her before once again fixing on the horizon. Nebula closed her eyes and clenched her jaw shut. Gamora looked between the two of them, compassion bordering on pity burning in her eyes. Nebula opened her eyes and adopted her usual aloof persona. No one moved for a long while. Then, to Tony’s surprise, Peter slowly relaxed his arms and extended them with his wrists turned upward.

Tony bit back bile.

_ Peter thrashed on the medbay bed, silently jerking his head. “Peter? Peter, can you hear me?” Bruce asked. Steve and Thor were the only ones strong enough to hold him down, but even they were having trouble. “Can you tell me where it hurts? Peter!” _

_ The boy surged up, pushing Thor back. He threw his arm and webbing shot out, trapping Clint’s hand against the wall. Wanda stepped up, her red energy flowing, encasing his wrists and ankles until he lay flat on the bed, shaking slightly. _

_ “This is why I retired, this is the exact reason why I retired,” Clint muttered. Natasha handed him a small knife and he began sawing through the sticky material. “Stark, I thought you said he didn’t have his web … things.” He glanced up from his work. “Stark?” _

_ Tony had his hands clasped in front of his mouth. “Wanda, let him go,” he said, his voice weak. “Let him go,” he repeated. Peter was staring at the red energy surrounding him, his eyes wide and his breathing quickening.  _

_ The heart rate monitor hooked up to him began beeping faster and faster. “Someone calm him down!” Bruce yelled. He was frantically digging through drawers, muttering about people moving things on him. _

_ Tony stepped up to the bed. “Peter, kid, you need to breathe, deep breaths.” Peter’s eyes shot to Tony and his breathing slowed slightly. He kept his eyes on Tony’s even as Bruce found what he was looking for and rushed back over. He inhaled sharply as Bruce injected something into the crook of his elbow, and slackened, still looking at Tony until his eyes fell shut. _

_ “One of Cap’s sedatives,” Bruce explained. “His metabolism should burn through it in about four or five hours.” With that confirmation, Wanda released her hold on him and he became boneless on the bed. Bruce took one of Peter’s hands in his and turned it over gently. His brow furrowed and he looked up to where Clint was still trying to free himself. Bruce prodded the delicate flesh of Peter’s inner wrist. “What the hell happened to this kid?” he muttered. _

Tony looked at the screen. Gamora and Nebula were going back into the ship and Peter was swinging down to the ground. Tony cut the feed and watched as Peter walked past him into the compound, away from the open bay door. 

* * *

 

_ Thanos appeared in front of them. But he wasn’t alone. A figure was next to him. It was hard to tell from a distance whether it was male or female, but the slight frame lacked curves, so Tony thought of it as male. He was wrapped head to toe in dark fabric with a cloak around his shoulders. He stood a half-step behind Thanos, head slightly bowed. _

_ Tony stood a distance away from Thanos, the remaining Avengers behind him. “Bring him back,” Tony said, nothing but ice in his voice. _

_ “I understand your pain,” Thanos replied. “I lost my child as well—” _

_ Tony chuckled darkly, “No, see, you  _ killed _ your kid. And then you killed mine. Now that, that was where you really fucked up. I’ll give you one more chance. Bring. Him. Back.” _

_ Thanos smirked and waved a hand at the figure, who hadn’t moved during the exchange. “Son,” the purple man said, “show him.” _

_ At that signal, the fighting began. The figure was launching small, white projectiles that expanded into netting when they hit their mark. _

_ “Son? Jesus, how many kids does this guy have? He’s gotta be halfway to a reality show,” Tony muttered. He dodged a shot from the black-cloaked figure standing next to Thanos. FRIDAY was trying to analyze the projectiles being thrown, but given that they were most likely alien in nature, it would take a while. “Okay, Nebula, give me the breakdown, which one of your siblings is this and how do we beat them?” _

_ Silence over the comms. Then, “I don't know.” _

_ Tony dodged again. “What do you mean ‘you don't know’?” _

_ “I mean I don't know, Stark,” she said, sounding even more irritated than she already was. “When I left, it was just me, Gamora, and the Black Order; four of Thanos’s most loyal lieutenants.” _

_ “Was one of them a really ugly telekinetic guy?” _

_ “Yes, Ebony Maw.” _

_ Tony heard laughter over the comms. “This guy’s name is  _ Ebony Maw _?! Ha! Guess you got off easy in the name department, eh Nebula?” _

_ “Okay, whoever just said that, you're right, but that's not him,” Tony said. He fired a repulsor blast and the black figure agilely leaped out of the way. Tony cleared his throat, remembering the look on Peter's face when his plan worked. “Me and the kid took care of him. Who else could it be?” _

_ “The other members are Corvus Glaive, Proxima Midnight, and Cull Obsidian—” _

_ “The rabbit was correct about unfortunate names,” Thor commented, punctuated by the sound of lightning striking somewhere. _

_ “—but none of them are this … scrawny.” _

_ “They’re all gone, anyway,” Rogers said. “Wanda got the girl, Vision got the leader —” _

_ “And I took care of the big guy,” Bruce added. _

_ Tony ducked as Rhodey blasted a piece of rock headed for him. “So, what does this mean?” Rhodey asked. _

_ “It means we have no info on this guy,” Tony said. “And somehow, between stone searching and destroying half the universe, Thanos found the time to adopt and indoctrinate someone else.” _

Thor clapped Tony on the shoulder, startling him out of his reverie. “Hey, Point Break. Did you get everything they needed?”

“Yes, it took a bit longer than expected. Had a few … disputes on a few planets, there was a particularly disagreeable Krylorian who refused my  _ perfectly reasonable _ price for …” he trailed off, presumably reading Tony’s expression. “You don’t care. Ah, yes, Rocket says the ship will be ready for travel in a matter of days.”

Tony nodded. “Good, good. You going with them?”

“At first, yes. The remaining Asgardians are waiting for me. We were headed to Earth to settle down in the wake of Ragnarok, but many of them are apprehensive given how often Earth tends to get invaded or attacked,” Thor said. The two men looked across the room to where Peter was propped against a window with a book open in his lap. His back was to the both of them, so Tony couldn’t tell where he was looking. Thor lowered his voice (as much as Thor is capable of lowering his voice) and turned away from Peter, “How goes the Man of Spider’s recovery?”

_ Oh, you know, _ Tony thought,  _ he hasn’t spoken in nearly a month, but we at least know his vocal cords aren’t damaged because on the rare occasions he gets more than an hour of sleep, he wakes up screaming.  _ He shrugged. “It’s going,” he settled on.

Thor nodded. “He’s strong.”

“He’s a kid,” Tony said.

“And children are strong,” Thor assured. He looked over at Peter, who still hadn’t moved. “Once, when I and …” he stopped, a distant look in his eyes before clearing his throat and grinning. “You don’t care.”

“Hey, Pirate Angel!” a thick Brooklyn accent called out. The two men looked down and saw Rocket approaching them. He nodded at Tony and directed his attention to Thor. “Quill wants to show us some castle or something from his home and that Marvel chick is gonna bring us. You want to come?”

“A castle? In Missouri?” Tony asked.

Rocket jerked his head in a single nod, “Yeah, the queen of Derry, I guess.”

Tony felt his lips twitch. “Do you mean Dairy Queen?” he asked.

“You know of her, Stark?” Thor asked.

Tony nodded. “Yeah, she has a great place, you’re gonna love it. Have fun.” Thor smiled and walked toward the hangar. With him out of the way, Rocket unabashedly stared at Peter. Tony moved in front of Peter protectively. “Can I help you with something?” the billionaire asked the raccoon.

“Nah,” Rocket said. He stayed there for a moment before shaking his head and walking off.

_ Peter was sedated again. The medbay was a hub of activity as the doctors and nurses rushed around, tending to the people who were wounded in that final battle. Tony was sitting in a chair next to Peter’s bed. He nearly fought Strange until the wizard let him be treated from his spot next to Peter.  _

_ “I am Groot,” a voice next to Tony said. He woke with a start, not even realizing that he had been falling asleep. Though, he thought he might have still been asleep when he identified the owner of the voice as a tree. “I am Groot,” it repeated. _

_ “Good for you?” Tony said, rubbing his eyes. The tree made some kind of scoffing noise and rolled its eyes. _

_ “I am Groot,” the tree muttered. It held some kind of tablet in its hands and began messing with it while standing at the foot of Peter’s bed.  _

_ “Hey! What’d we say about the language?” a voice snapped. Tony sat up in his chair and saw a raccoon standing on two legs and snatching the tablet out of the tree’s hands. The raccoon looked at Tony. “He’s asking if that’s your kid — the one I said you were going crazy to find. I can’t tell, all you humans look the same to me.” _

_ “Yeah,” Tony said. There was probably some lingering shock contributing to his calm demeanor, or it was just the acceptance that this was his reality now — talking raccoons and trees. “He’s my kid,” he confirmed. Months ago, he would have bluffed his way around a direct answer to that question, but his hesitation went out the window the second Thanos decided to make it personal.  _

_ “I am Groot,” the tree said again. The raccoon looked almost wary - if raccoons can look wary, that is. _

_ “He says …” he trailed off, as if considering his words. “He says that he wasn’t in the orange place, so where did you find him.” the raccoon looked between the stricken billionaire and the curious tree. “Groot, go bother Quill, make sure he and Gamora aren’t getting gross somewhere.” He handed the tablet back to the tree and it meandered off to somewhere else in the medbay. “I gotta go check the ship,” he said. “If he bugs you again, let me know.” The small mammal looked at Peter, then back at Tony. “Take care of your kid, Stark.” _

Tony remembered the way Rocket looked at Peter in the medbay. It was sympathetic, like he knew how it felt to see his kid lying hurt somewhere and being unable to do anything about it. When he saw Peter sitting next to the window, that was all gone. Instead, he regarded the boy with macabre fascination, like a specimen. Like the way people look at a dangerous animal that was now sedated and locked in a zoo. Tony looked over his shoulder and saw Peter exiting the room, his book left on the windowsill. 

* * *

 

Of all the Guardians, Tony minded Nebula the least. The two of them engaged in the universe’s weirdest and most awkward road trip after The Snap to get to Earth, and she managed to patch him up so he didn’t immediately die on Titan. Unlike Drax, who understands figures of speech less than even Thor, and Quill, who despite being human has no sense of how to talk to them, Nebula could carry a conversation when she wanted to, which admittedly wasn’t often. She seemed to share Tony’s exasperation for the extra-terrestrials and their antics, which was refreshing. However, despite the tentative bond that they had formed, Tony was caught off guard when she approached him on the Guardians’ last day on Earth.

He was making some adjustments to Peter’s Iron Spider suit. It had been meant as a present for Peter’s seventeenth birthday, but obviously he’d had to take it out early. Tony was taking off a few things that were no longer necessary or able to be used, but he still wanted to incorporate those features somehow, he had just yet to figure out how. He set down his tools and wiped his brow. He jumped, startled, when he looked up from his work and saw Nebula silently watching him from less than three feet away. Tony opened his mouth to ask what she wanted when she cut him off in her warbling electronic voice.

“When Thor returned with the parts needed,” she said, her tone completely even and giving away nothing, “he had news he refused to share with any of us. When Rocket got the ship working, he also repaired the communication systems. This showed that in their absence they had … that  _ we _ had,” she corrected herself after a moment of indecision, “a number of distress signals sent to us. Many of them were just about the disappearances, but a number of them were about Thanos’s forces invading their planets attempting to ‘keep the peace’ in his perfect universe,” A touch of scorn slipped into her voice at the end. “Apparently when you disintegrate people’s loved ones, they take issue with it.”

“Who knew,” Tony said, dryly.

“Of those distress signals, many reported similar experiences. One of those had a video file attached,” Nebula placed a small piece of hardware on the workbench in front of him. “The others didn’t think your team should see it.”

Tony looked between the object and her. “You thought differently?” he asked. 

Nebula shrugged. “I thought it should be your decision. At the least, you deserve an explanation. You had to have noticed their odd behavior by now.”

Of course he had — the Guardians all acted similarly strange after Thor’s return. Not to say they weren’t  _ always _ strange, because they were. But Tony noticed this kind of weird. Mantis would sometimes yelp and run to another room with no prompting. Drax would twitch dangerously and was always quickly ushered away by Quill or Thor. Gamora’s face was stuck in a mask of indifference. Once, Tony caught her and Quill having a conversation in the hallway that looked serious. They hadn’t noticed Tony immediately.

“I don’t know, Gamora,” Quill said. “I feel bad for him, then I’m pissed at myself for feeling bad, then I feel bad for getting pissed.”

“It’s not too late for him,” Gamora insisted.

“Seems pretty damn late to me,” Quill muttered, and the two walked away.

Maybe subtlety has a different meaning in space, but Tony was quick to see the common denominator in these reactions. They only occurred around Peter.

“Keep it,” she said when Tony picked up the file and tried to hand it to her. “It’s up to you whether you show your team or not,” Nebula said, then shrugged. “It’s up to you whether you watch it or not. We’re leaving in less than an hour, so it doesn’t matter to me. But you should keep it.”

She walked out of the room and left Tony sitting there, staring at the file. He was still sitting there as the Guardians and Thor left Earth, and only moved when FRIDAY informed him of the late hour. Even then, he only went to his room (after checking on Peter one last time) and sat at his desk fiddling with the file.

It took him two more days before he worked up the courage to watch it. The Guardians left one of their devices with the Avengers in case they ever needed to contact them, and there was a port on it that the file fit into. After fumbling a bit with the unfamiliar technology, he got the hologram to flicker to life.

The video was shaky and a bit grainy, almost like it was shot on the space equivalent of an iPhone.  _ At least it’s not vertical _ , Tony thought. He remembered before everything happened that Peter would sometimes gripe about how gross vertically shot videos were. Tony almost smiled, but thinking of Peter while watching that video made him sick, so he focused on the content.

It started with a blurry zoom-in of something’s face before whoever was controlling the camera fixed it, showing a male humanoid being with yellow skin. “Are you getting this, Mikhail?” he said, in an accent that Tony couldn’t place.

A voice from behind the camera, Mikhail, Tony guessed, responded with, “Yeah, we’re broadcasting, go ahead.”

The guy on screen nodded and cleared his throat. At that point, Tony became aware of the ambient noises of the video. Loud shouting and screaming, explosions, things collapsing. The man and the person behind the camera seemed to be outside, but were against a wall made of stone. “This is Roberi Corniz,” he said directly to the camera, then listed coordinates which made no sense to Tony. “Our remaining warriors and people attempted to call Thanos to us to fight, but he sent an army led by —”

“Roberi, get down!” Mikhail shouted. There was a disorienting moment where the camera moved quickly and an explosion rocked the world. When the frame righted itself, Roberi and a man who was probably Mikhail were seen crouching behind a partially destroyed structure. Mikhail swung the camera around, showing a wave of Outriders pursuing a group of similarly colored people, tearing into any straggler they could catch. Behind the mindless killing machines walking slowly, almost calmly, was a figure in dark fabric. His cloak blew in the breeze behind him, but the cloth wrapped around his head didn’t move.

Tony put a hand over his mouth and breathed in sharply through his nose. Mikhail zoomed the camera in on him and Tony leaned back in his chair heavily, forcing himself to watch. The figure — Thanos’s son — snapped his fingers, drawing the attention of five or six Outriders, then pointed to his right. The merciless beasts scrambled over themselves and each other to obey his nonverbal command. He made a motion with his hand then pointed forward, sending another wave in from behind him into the streets. Though they took no caution for each other’s personal space, every single one of them was careful to give the son a wide berth as they rushed forward around him.

The camera zoomed out once more and Tony saw that Roberi had moved to a different structure further away from Mikhail. He waited until the son moved past him, then picked up a heavy-looking metal rod with a jagged edge. He had to use both hands to lift it, then threw it as hard as he could, directly at the son’s chest. Tony’s nails dug into the leather arms of his chair.

Roberi’s aim was a little off, and the impromptu spear went higher than intended, towards the son’s head rather than his chest. It didn’t matter, either way. Seconds before it would have impaled him, Thanos’s son caught the projectile in one hand. His grip tightened and the metal groaned before shattering like a brittle twig. His head then snapped to where Roberi had ducked down. Roberi’s eyes widened when the son crossed what was easily ten yards in a single leap. In less than a second, he was standing behind Roberi, grabbing his head, and twisting it all the way around. Tony jolted when his body hit the ground.

Even with the camera right next to him, Mikhail’s whimper was barely audible, yet the son whipped his head up in the direction of the sound and began stalking towards him. Mikhail dropped the camera and ran in the opposite direction. From the camera’s now stationary position, Tony could only see the son. He shot out a thin, silvery substance and Tony heard Mikhail’s cry of shock and the sound of something heavy being dropped and dragged over dirt. Thanos’s son began reeling the man in, his shouts getting louder the closer he got to the camera. His foot jostled the camera, but it remained right side up for Tony to watch as the son wrapped the silvery substance around Mikhail’s throat. 

His yellow skin turned a grotesque shade of green. His hands flailed, trying to get purchase on the son’s arms, but the clothes he wore made them just slide off. Mikhail made choked gurgling noises, fighting for any amount of air as he was strangled. His nails clawed at where the substance was on his throat, drawing drops of blue-tinted blood to the surface, leaving streaks against his neck. His eyes were wide open and his mouth stuck in a silent scream as he finally, mercifully, went limp. The son pushed him to the ground like he was garbage. Mikhail’s eyes remained open, fixed on a spot just over the camera.

Thanos’s son straightened up, then calmly walked forward, crushing the camera under his foot as he did, ending the video.

The second the screen went blank, Tony flew out of his seat, running up the stairs of the compound to the roof. He stood in the crisp night air catching his breath for a beat, then leaned over the side and vomited.

Some time later, just as the darkness began to lighten with the first rays of morning light, Tony heard footsteps behind him. He was sitting on the edge of the roof, and the new person joined him, sitting on his right side. Neither of them spoke for a long while, just watched the horizon.

“I get it now,” Tony said, breaking the silence, but not moving his gaze. “I’m sorry. I get it now.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony saw Steve nod. “I’m sorry, too,” he said.

“Does it ever get easier? Knowing that about someone?”

“Not really,” Steve answered, and the two men lapsed into silence once more.

_ Thanos was dead. The people who disappeared were back. But Peter wasn’t. _

_ Tony had Thanos’s son pinned underneath him. His cloak had gotten lost in the fight and his clothes underneath were just as dark. Black fabric obscured his face. “Let’s try this again. Since your dad didn’t want to talk to me, how ‘bout you, huh?” _

_ He was met with silence. Not surprising. During the entire fight, Tony barely heard even a grunt from this guy. “Where is Peter?” he asked. _

_ Nothing again. Tony shifted so he restrained the son with one hand and pulled up a hologram with the other. It was a screenshot of the video Peter made of their trip to Germany, Tony and Peter smiling into the camera. _

_ “Peter Parker, of Queens, Earth. He disappeared with everyone else, and everyone else is back,  _ except him _. Where is he!” _

_ No reaction. Tony grew frustrated. He knew it was wrong, but his desperation outweighed his morality. His hand closed around the son’s throat. “Where is he?” he asked, his voice low. _

_ This, at least, got a reaction out of the guy. Gurgles and choked breaths came from underneath the fabric around his head. He put his hands on Tony’s wrist, but made no move to push him off. Behind him, Tony heard voices, but was too focused to tell who said what. _

_ “Peter, you have to stop him! It was too late for me, and Nebula, and the Black Order, but it’s not too late for this boy.  _ Stop him _.” _

_ “Hey, Stark, ease up, alright?” _

_ “Tones, you can’t question him if he’s dead.” _

_ “Stand down, Stark!” _

_ “Tony!” _

_ “M-miss’er … S-S-Stark …” _

_ Tony’s eyes widened and he ripped the swathes of dark fabric from the head of the person below him. There was a dark bruise in the shape of a large hand around his neck.  _ Tony’s _ large hand. “No, no, Peter …” _

_ He looked overwhelmed, his eyes darting everywhere, always coming back to Tony’s face. He opened his mouth and his eyes rolled back in his head, his whole body falling slack. Tony caught him. He’ll always catch him. But this time, he had caught him too late. _

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a little sorry, but not much.


End file.
